Several sources say that N.A.S.A is looking for a big golden asteroid. This space rock could make us all billionaires, or at least it could if the people who get it shared the money. This “golden egg,” called Psyche 16, is between Mars and Jupiter and is said to be made of solid metal.
It is said to have other valuable metals, like platinum, iron, and even nickel, along with the gold. The Sun says that its total value is estimated to be a huge $10,000 quadrillion. If the asteroid were brought to Earth, it could destroy the world’s economy, which is worth $75.5 trillion at the moment.
A major accomplishment for N.A.S.A would be the successful capture of Psyche 16, which has the potential to reveal new information on the formation of solar systems. Asteroids may represent the next great gold rush, according to Scott Moore, a seasoned miner and CEO of EuroSun mining. Furthermore, when the Earth’s resources deplete, this initiative is considered as our next move. Even if the concept of searching for resources on asteroids and other similar objects sounds weird or even futuristic, it may someday become a reality. The concept is fantastic on its own, and it would be awesome if it came to pass.
Unfortunately, mining asteroids is not easy, and after N.A.S.A’s launch in 2022, it could be years before they can land on Psyche 16 and start mining there. Still, anything is possible, and as technology gets better, we might be able to do just that. Even though it wouldn’t be easy to bring the things on this asteroid back to Earth, it might be possible in the future. However, as you’ll see below, that probably won’t happen on this trip, which is only for scientific purposes.
When news of this asteroid’s value spread in June 2019, Fox News wrote the following about it:
- N.a.s.a will send a probe to the asteroid in the summer of 2022. It will get to Psyche 16 around 2026. It is called the Discovery Mission.
- But bringing back an asteroid of this size and value could wipe out the world economy completely.
- The space agency is going on the trip, but they don’t plan to do any mining while they’re there.
- It is thought that 16 Psyche is one of the planets that survived the violent hit-and-run collisions that were common when the solar system was forming.
- That means it could tell us how the cores of Earth and the other planets with solid surfaces were made.
- After asteroid ownership became legal in 2015, two space mining companies backed by famous people are getting ready for a gold rush.
- Even though the things on this asteroid might never make it to Earth, the fact that they exist at all is amazing. Doesn’t it blow your mind that something like this exists? I could never have thought of it in a million years.
..NA.S.A wrote the following about this rock in space on their website:
16 Psyche is a huge metal asteroid that is about three times farther from the sun than the Earth. It is one of the most interesting places to look in the main asteroid belt. It is about 140 miles (226 kilometers) across on average, which is about one-sixteenth the size of the Moon or the distance between Los Angeles and San Diego. Scientists think that the M-type (metallic) asteroid 16 Psyche is mostly made of metallic iron and nickel, like the Earth’s core. This is different from most other asteroids, which are made of rocks or ice. Scientists wonder if Psyche could be the exposed core of an early planet, maybe as big as Mars, that lost its rocky outer layers because of a series of violent collisions billions of years ago.
Astronomers on Earth have looked at 16 Psyche using visible light, infrared light, and radar. These studies suggest that 16 Psyche is shaped like a potato. Based on what has been seen, it is 173 miles long, 144 miles wide, and 117 miles tall, which are 279, 232, and 189 kilometers, respectively. Between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, Psyche goes around the Sun at a distance of 235 million to 309 million miles (378 million to 497 million kilometers). That’s 2.5 to 3.3 Astronomical Units (AU), where 1 AU is the distance between Earth and the Sun. It takes Psyche about five Earth years to go around the Sun once, but it only takes a little over four hours to spin on its axis once (a “day” on Psyche).
The main goal of the Psyche mission is now this interesting asteroid. The Psyche spacecraft is scheduled to take off in August 2022. It would reach the asteroid in early 2026, after stopping at Mars in 2023 to use its gravity as a boost. Over the course of 21 months in orbit, the spacecraft will use a multispectral imager, a gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer, a magnetometer, and a radio instrument to map and study the properties of 16 Psyche (for gravity measurement). The goal of the mission is, among other things, to find out if Psyche is really the center of something the size of a planet.
How do you feel about everything? I, for one, can hardly figure it out. Even though bringing something like this back to Earth would change a lot, do you think it would be a good or bad idea in the future? I, for one, am not sure what to do.
